It has become a landslide of crushing proportions. With the vast majority of votes now counted, more than 98 per cent of voters in southern Sudan have cast their ballots for secession, officials say.
The massive margin of victory, endorsed by neutral election observers, will be an almost insurmountable obstacle for the Sudan government to overcome if it tries to resist the southern independence drive.
It now seems increasingly likely that southern Sudan will become the world's newest nation on July 9, the date when it is legally allowed to declare independence under the 2005 peace agreement that ended decades of civil war.
Of the 3.2 million votes counted so far in the referendum, 98.6 per cent favour secession, according to a statement on Friday by the Southern Sudan Referendum Commission.
In some southern states, less than 100 people voted for unity, while hundreds of thousands voted for independence. Even in northern Sudan, where many southerners live, the majority of southerners voted for secession. The margin was much smaller in the north, but this will have little effect because those voters are a tiny percentage of the total.
Nearly four million voters were registered in the referendum, and the commission says more than 90 per cent of them participated, far above the 60 per cent minimum that was required to validate the referendum. Despite predictions of violence and delays, the referendum was held on time and was impressively peaceful and orderly, making it credible to the international community.
Observers from the European Union and the Carter Center have given their approval to the vote. The EU mission called it "credible and well-organized." The Carter Center, headed by former U.S. president Jimmy Carter, said the vote was "broadly consistent with international standards" and "represents the genuine expression of the will of the electorate."
The official results will be released next month, but the outcome is no longer in doubt. The only question now is the reaction from Khartoum. Will it try to launch legal challenges against the referendum, exploiting minor technical violations in the voter registration process? Will it play hardball in the six-month negotiating period, refusing to reach agreement on the contentious issues that need to be resolved between the north and south?
Legal challenges are becoming less likely, since the vote for secession has been so overwhelming and so credible. But the north still has other issues that it can use to disrupt the independence drive if it chooses to do so.
So far, the comments from northern leaders have been conciliatory, accepting the fairness of the results. "We are doing our best to prepare for the consequences of secession," an official of Sudan's ruling party told the Reuters news agency in Khartoum. "The party is working for the post-referendum period now – the demarcation of the borders and the resolution of the Abyei problem."
Abyei, a disputed oil-producing region on the north-south border, appears to be the most divisive issue in the negotiations. The two sides had agreed that Abyei should hold its own referendum to decide whether to join the north or south, but they could not agree on who would be eligible to vote – so the referendum was never held. The south has refused to accept that a large nomadic Arab tribe of cattle-herders should be allowed to vote in Abyei, but the north has insisted that the nomads are legitimate residents of Abyei.
Violence flared up in Abyei this month, killing dozens of people in clashes between the Arab nomads and the pro-southern Ngok Dinka people. But an agreement was negotiated to halt the fighting, and talks over the fate of Abyei are expected to resume.
Another key question is the division of oil revenue between the north and south, since most of Sudan's oil is located in the south and exported through a pipeline to the north. But both sides have a strong financial interest in reaching agreement on the oil, allowing the money to keep flowing.